Please allow me to slyly quote myself,

I'm a man of words, not waste...*

“Papa lay dead for six months when another spot came up. It had a better view. Nan said he liked to sit in their kitchen and smoke and look over the headstones to the sea. No-one had sat in his chair since. Pete watched as the rain fell in the darkness and the men slooshed around the hole with the box between them. A genny fed two lights and the men wore hats like cowboys. Pete hid behind a stone angel with his plastic revolver and aimed at the grave robbers and clicked. One man slipped and landed on his backside and dropped the box. Pete slapped his hand over his mouth. Shouting and cursing but not a word from Papa. His shoes still shone after six months in the ground. Nan reached to touch her husband as they fixed the lid. Mum held her back but Nan struggled and Mum fell. A right fuss. Papa hated a fuss.”

This is the opening paragraph of my short story “Bury Me In The Garden.” It came to me almost fully formed in a dream. It was a re-imagining of my childhood visits to my relatives' farms in Co. Mayo, Ireland. I wrote it in two days.

In the judge's eyes, it outshone hundreds of strong entries from around the world and won the Over The Edge New Writer Of The Year Award, 2007.

It should have launched my fiction writing career. But I rested on my laurels and thought some writing wizard would appear and magic up that career for me.

Once again, I had earned my Fortune. Once again, I didn't reckon on the Reversal. 

Oops, I did it again to your art.** 

The opening paragraph of this story was the one I was most worried about sharing. This part was based on fact. Six months after he was buried in 1984, my Mum moved my Papa's casket when a better burial spot came up.

The whole thing was shrouded in secrecy at the time. Maybe it was considered disrespectful, or unholy, or some other “what will others think?” nonsense we've all worried about at some time. 

As a 12-year-old kid with a morbid imagination fired by Catholic guilt, fire and brimstone, I thought it was very cool. I couldn't understand what there was to be ashamed of.

What it really showed was how my Mum would never settle for anything less than the best for her loved ones, even when they're dead. 

But I knew Mum had issues around it at the time. Would she still feel that way 23 years later? It is a common concern for writers: how do I tell my truth when it might cause pain to others?

And so as I stood on the podium to publicly and nervously read my prize-winning story, the first pair of eyes I locked onto in the audience was my Mum's.

That night at the drinks celebration, Kevin the competition organizer sat me down to praise my thrillingly original work, and to ask me if I had more stories like it. I lied and said I had way more than I did, so he wouldn't think I was a one-trick pony.

“So what should I do next?” I asked him, waiting to be handed the keys to the kingdom. “The literary world has no clear path except the one you write for yourself,” replied Kevin sagely.

Not what I wanted to hear. 

As a further nudge from the universe, as I left the party that night, one of the competition runners-up stopped me at the door. 

“I love your story,” she said. “You're a great writer.”

“Wow, thank you, that means a lot,” I said truthfully. I admired the character she showed in genuinely supporting the writer whose story was chosen over hers. 

“Winning this is a great opportunity,” she continued. “Make the most of it.” 

I didn't know how to reply. So I smiled. 

“But how do I make the most of it?!?” I screamed silently as I stepped into that windy November night. 

The next time I sat down to write a story, it.... didn't go so well. It didn't come to me fully formed in a dream. The words didn't flow. The dialogue was forced and awkward.

Because my early effort had succeeded, I didn't yet know how to struggle through the writing process.

I abandoned that next story. I wrote a series of others through the eyes of that same 10-year-old character, Pete. I thought they were good, friends told me they were good. But they weren't hitting home with competitions or publications. 

I lost heart, and I lost faith. 

“You won another competition!” is what I WANTED to hear every day. 

I wrote more stories over the years, but only when inspired. I didn't know at the time that TAKING ACTION creates inspiration... not the other way around.

“Write every day regardless of how you feel” was what I NEEDED to hear every day.

BUT...

… Though “Bury Me In The Garden” didn't launch my writing career the way I expected, that one international prize-winning story continued to open totally unexpected doors for me for years to come...

→ A film director read it and we teamed up to produce two films together. 

→ A film producer offered to produce a film version of one my “sequel” stories. 

→ I became the Writer In Residence at the Ernest & Mary Hemingway House in Ketchum, Idaho, staying in the very house in which the great author lived out his last days.

What's the lesson I carry with me today?

After every Fortune, expect a Reversal.

When you expect a Reversal, you can prepare for the Reversal. Though it mightn't be clear where the answers will come from, always be on the lookout for clues.

Funny thing for me is, I had given myself the clue all along; I had written in the last line of the story that had started it all.

“Pete came out shooting.”

Tomorrow: Crossing The Line

* Thanks, Mick & Keith

** Thanks, Max, Rami & Britney